


It's a Long Way Down

by Winterling42



Series: I am also a We [10]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 13:15:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: During a storm on board theTide's Breath, Fjord draws the rest of the cluster to him, and they try to stop the ship from sinking...
Series: I am also a We [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1427866
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	It's a Long Way Down

Beau was on a date when it happened. She and a white girl named October or some shit like that were walking through a park, looking for a place dark and out of sight of the security cameras, when the ground heaved under her feet. Beau stumbled and almost fell, catching herself on September’s arm. 

“Hey, are you okay?” the girl asked, grabbing Beau with both hands. 

“Yeah, fine.” Beau tried to laugh it off, but the smell of salt was in her nose, and her heart was beating way too fast. “Must’ve been a rock or something--” A wave crashed over her, a hundred thousand gallons of black water hammering her into the slick metal of the deck. Beau gasped and coughed salt water, shaking her hair out of her eyes. 

She was on Fjord’s ship. It was night here too, the only sources of light the lanterns hanging every twenty feet or so along the main deck. It was difficult to tell who was with her, in the dark, but she felt the press of familiar bodies and voices starting to yell. At least some of the cluster was here with her.

“This  _ is _ the nightmare scenario!” Nott was screaming, somewhere. 

“Fjord, what do we do?” Caleb had one arm around the railing and the other around Nott. 

“What is  _ happening _ right now?” Beau asked, her words blown away by a howling gust of wind. 

Fjord hauled himself (and the rest of them) to his (their) feet and moved along the deck, keeping both hands wrapped around the rail. “What do you  _ think _ is happening?” he shouted back. “Help me get this hatch open!” In the middle of a dark patch of deck was a raised square of metal, complete with a wheel on top like some misplaced safe. “Before the next wave, come on!” The deck was tilting pretty alarmingly, threatening to send Beau sliding down towards the water now dimly visible on the other side of the ship. They’d hit the wave diagonally, somehow, so that there was nothing but a slim metal rail and some leftover shipping containers between her and the ocean. 

Nott was still screaming. 

“Alright, move.” Yasha shouldered past Beau, careless of the slick deck, and set herself against the wheel. After a moment Beau shook the rain out of her eyes and went to help. The three of them slipped and heaved against the stubborn metal even as the ship’s tilt got worse and worse...and then abruptly leveled off. 

“ _ Shit _ ,” Fjord cursed, even as the added leverage let Yasha twist the wheel free with a piercing shriek. “Get inside. NOW!” Fjord leapt down into the dark as the  _ Tide’s Breath _ slid off the crest of the wave. All of them were tossed around like dolls, and another rush of salt water followed them through the hatch. Somehow, after Beau’s eyes had stopped stinging and Caleb had stopped coughing, they were all standing. Caduceus reached up and slammed the hatch closed, leaving only the pallid glow of emergency lighting in the hallway as everyone panted in silence for a moment. It was the first time she’d seen all of them together, Beau realized at once. Soaked and ragged, a weird bunch of misfits and assholes, but for some reason she was glad they were here. 

“Caleb,” Nott said, breaking the silence with a desperate rasp. “Caleb, I need you to get me out of here.” 

“I know, Schatz, I am trying.” Caleb still had one arm wrapped around Nott. For a moment the world shifted around them, almost like the boat tilting on the waves, and they were in a park. Under a pair of old sycamore trees, with evening sunlight still filtering down around them. In this light Beau could see a deep cut on Fjord’s face, barely missing his eye. There were bruises on Yasha’s pale arms already from wrestling with the hatch. 

And Nott was gasping for air, her eyes squeezed shut. She had just started to relax her death grip on Caleb’s arm when another wave hit them, somewhere across the ocean, and brought them back to the storm. “Fuck!” Nott shouted, but she peeled herself away from Caleb all the same. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Fjord snapped; there was a panicked look in his eyes. “We’re taking on water. Nott, just--”

“ _ On _ it,” Nott sneered, fumbling with the cap on her flask. “I don’t want to be here any more than you do, buddy boy.”

“Fine.” Fjord hesitated, though, before he turned away and sloshed through the narrow corridor. Beau and Caduceus followed first, Cad having to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the bulkheads and occasional pipe that jutted out. Beau could hear the others slogging along behind her, the water sucking at her feet. 

“Question,” Caddy said, actually raising his hand. 

Fjord glanced back, his eyes gleaming in the emergency lights. 

“Are we sinking? The ship, I mean.” Caduceus didn’t sound particularly bothered by the idea, but then, it was hard to tell with him. 

“No, no. Not...really. Not as long as I can fix the...leak.” Fjord started off strong, confident. But by the end he was almost stammering; Beau was pretty sure it was his fear holding them all here. His terror she was feeling. But she couldn’t hear a drop of it in his voice. “We just have to--” 

Just then they heard the loud splashing of someone else around the corner. Someone not them. 

Fjord skidded to a stop just as a short white man came around into their hallway with one of those gallon-sized flashlights in one hand and a shoelace in the other. At least, Beau thought it was a shoelace...

"Sabien?" Fjord asked, just as shocked as the other sailor, who said, "Fjord?" at the exact same time.

"Do you two need some time alone?" Beau asked, as the others came to stand with her. "I thought we were in a hurry here."

Fjord glanced at her, and the  _ second _ his eyes moved Sabien was running at him. The water slowed everyone down just long enough for Beau to see the cord that Sabien was holding stretched back into the room to their right, and then another wave hit them.

This time the world tilted backwards under her feet, like all her worst dreams of falling off her father's roof. Beau flailed wildly, and in the panic everything collapsed down into one body--Sabien was bringing the flashlight down on  _ her _ face, it was  _ her _ hands wrapped around his arms,  _ her _ blood she could taste as the heavy flashlight hit her. Then she hit the back wall of the hallway, now almost turned into the floor as the  _ Tide's Breath _ rolled with the waves. The water was deep enough her that she was completely underneath it, choking on the taste of salt and grease and oil. Even as Fjord's fucking crewmate  _ held her under _ .

It was Beau who brought her hands up inside Sabien's and forced him away, who flipped back to her feet and lashed out with a quick kick that hit the inside of his knee.

But it was Yasha who coughed up salt water and pressed a hand to the blood now pouring down the side of her face, baring her own teeth in a snarl. Yasha's growl, that Beau could feel deep in her own belly, and who launched herself back at Sabien with a cry like a bird of prey.

Sabien stumbled back, holding up his arms to guard his face as Yasha pummeled him with her bare fists. When the ship started to level off again, Sabien dropped the flashlight and pulled a knife from his boot.

Yasha would have ignored it, but Fjord stumbled back, wary of the blade. He'd seen Sabien fight with a knife before, and it hadn't been pretty.

"Fuck, Fjord, you weren't supposed to be here," Sabien said, through a mushy jaw. He turned his other hand up and opened it, and they could all see the simple black switch he'd been holding so tightly it'd drawn blood.

"Sheisse--" Caleb said, and started forward--just as Sabien flipped the switch.

Beau could feel the explosion in her feet, a shuddering of metal that made the water stand still around them for a moment...and then it began to get deeper  _ very _ quickly. The ship started to list in the opposite direction, pulling them forward, towards Sabien. The sailor/shipwrecker turned and ran, and they couldn't afford to go after him.

"The hatch is back this way," Molly shouted, catching Fjord's arm when he would have run anyway. "Are you crazy?"

"He--" Fjord couldn't even find the words bad enough for what he was feeling--Beau knew, because she was feeling it too.

"We know," she said, grabbing Fjord's other arm. "But now we  _ got to go _ ."

They made it back up onto the deck, somehow. The ship was visibly lower in the water already, taking the waves heavily instead of rolling with the punches like it had before. Fjord was pulling a life jacket tight across his chest, heading for the ship's helm, when another wave caught him out on deck.

After that, it was all blackness and salt water.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr at [critical-ramblings](https://www.critical-ramblings.tumblr.com)!


End file.
